convey more than a most imperfect impression of its rich and various merits.
Great as was Jonson's reliance on the results of training and study, he never forgot that 'arts and precept avail nothing, except nature be beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to a dull disposition than rules of husbandry to a barren soil. No precepts will profit a fool; no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty, we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched descriptions: either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of want than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labour will help the contrary.'
Of Spenser, whom he seems to have liked no better than did Landor—in other words, no better than might have been expected of him,—he speaks here, on one point at least, in terms quite opposite to those recorded in Drummond's too sparing and irregular but delightful and invaluable notes. To the Scottish poet he said that 'Spenser's stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter': whereas in this later essay, while still
